Richard Morris Quotes

Second, we also got a more authentic liturgy of the people of God, in the vernacular language.

I hear around me reformers who want to dismantle the Holy Sanctuary, destroy the universal flame of the Church, to discard all her adornments, and smite her with remorse for her historic past.

Vatican II was a force that seized the mind of the Roman Catholic Church and carried it across centuries from the 13th to the 20th.

It's hard for the Catholic Church to accept change. When the mass was no longer said in Latin, loyalists went into mourning for years.

The real 'action' in the liturgy in which we are all supposed to participate is the action of God himself. This is what is new and distinctive about the Christian liturgy: God himself acts and does what is essential.

You can count on one hand the number of Novus Ordo churches in this country that feature a fully Catholic music program of any quality, consistent with the Roman rite tradition.

As a Catholic, I am proud of the social mission of the church and its concerns for the poor and dispossessed, but I still personally would support women priests.

I was raised Catholic at a time when Vatican II was just taking hold.

There are lots of things to like about being Eastern Orthodox - incense, liturgies, all the baklava you can eat - but you know what I like best? None of that stupid 'women's ministry' stuff.

My family is very traditional, Catholic.

BC is not going to replace the hierarchy, and BC is not going to lead some major reform in the Catholic Church - that's got to come out of the whole Catholic community.

The Roman Catholic Church and its rituals were so much part of life that, although my parents would often question a small matter of dogma and none of us seemed more religious than anyone else, no one ever questioned the rituals or the basic tenets of belief.

We cannot build up the idea of the apostolate of the laity without the foundation of the liturgy.

The priesthood is not dying, but the clerical state is dead. It needs to be buried, preferably with a Viking funeral in Boston Harbor so nobody can miss the spectacle of its passing.

As regards my own 'philosophy,' I continue to be inspired by the music, liturgy and architectural tradition of the Anglican Church in which I was brought up. No one can fail to be uplifted by great cathedrals - such as that at Ely, near my home in Cambridge.

St. Pope John XXIII called for the Second Vatican Council because he understood, as no Holy Father had in a long time, religion spoke to and found its language and symbols - its entire sense of the sacramental nature of existence - in the imagination that reveals not just the penalties of living, but the wonder and awe of our existence.

When I was a young priest in the 1960s and 1970s, there was much experimentation and confusion in the Church. Teachers and clergy were encouraged to communicate an experience of God's love, but to do it without reference to the Creed, the sacraments, or the tradition.

You are said to have publicly condemned the Apostolic and Latin church, without either a hearing or a conviction. And the chef reason for this condemnation, which displays an unexampled presumption and unbelievable effrontery, is that the Latin church dares to celebrate the commemoration of the Lord's passion with unleavened bread. What an unguarded accusation is this of yours, what an evil piece of arrogance! You place your mouth in heaven while your tongue, going through the world, strives such human arguments and conjectures to undermine and subvert the ancient faith.

I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that drives the plough to know more of the Scripture, than he does.

The Romanists have, with great adroitness, drawn three walls round themselves, with which they have hitherto protected themselves, so that no one could reform them, whereby all Christendom has fallen terribly. Firstly, if pressed by the temporal power, they have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual power is above the temporal. Secondly, if it were proposed to admonish them with the Scriptures, they objected that no one may interpret the Scriptures but the Pope. Thirdly, if they are threatened with a council, they pretend that no one may call a council but the Pope.

Her highness doth charge and command, all manner of her subjects, as well those that be called to ministry in the Church as all others, that they do forbear to preach, or teach, or to give audience to any manner of doctrine or preaching other than to the Gospels and Epistles, commonly called the Gospel and Epistle of the day, and to the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue, without exposition or addition of any manner, sense, or meaning to be applied and added; or to use any other manner of public prayer, rite, or ceremony in the Church, but that which is already used and by law received; or the common Litany used at this present in her majesty's own chapel, and the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed in English; until consultation may be had by Parliament, by her majesty and her three estates of this realm, for the better conciliation and accord of such causes, as at this present are moved in matters and ceremonies of religion.

Thou dost desire to enter into the island of Ireland, in order to subject the people to the laws and to extirpate the vices that have there taken root, and that thou art willing to pay an annual pension to St. Peter of one penny from every house, and to preserve the rights of the churches in that land inviolate and entire. We, therefore, … are well pleased that, for the enlargement of the bounds of the church. for the restraint of vice, for the correction of morals and the introduction of virtues, for the advancement of the Christian religion, thou shouldst enter that island, and carry out there the things that look to the honour of God and to its own salvation. And may the people of that land receive thee with honour, and venerate thee as their master;

It seems to me that the Pope's son, the Cardinal, is not in a condition for me to give him my daughter to wife. Make a cardinal who can marry and take off the hat, and then I will give him my daughter.

For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.

Do not now let them sacrifice animals to the Devil, but to the praise of God kill animals for their own eating…. So while some outward joys are retained for them, they may more readily respond to the inward joys. For from obdurate minds it is undoubtedly impossible to cut off everything at once, because he who strives to ascend to the highest place rises by degrees or steps and not by leaps.